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Player Of Year Leach Keen To Maintain High Standards Through Entire SummerFriday, March 4th, 2016

Joe Leach wants to maintain the form which earned him Worcestershire's Players' Player Of The Year award for 2015 throughout the entire season.

Leach finished as Worcestershire's leading wicket-taker in the County Championship with 59 victims despite not being selected for the opening two games of the season.

But Leach was disappointed he was unable to maintain his high standards during the latter part of last summer with the ball.

It is something the County's new vice-captain is keen to put right as he prepares to fly out later today with his team-mates for the pre-season tour of Abu Dhabi.

Leach said: "The more time passes, the more disappointed I was with the way the last four or five games went (of last season) to be honest.

"I had a really good patch and if you look at the likes of Richo (Alan Richardson), when he was getting 70-80 poles (wickets), he just wouldn't have a lull at any point during the season.

"If you want to be up there with the best, and be spoken about in those kind of ways, you need to make sure you are performing over hopefully 16 games, and certainly last year over 14 games – and that wasn't the case."

All-rounder Leach, Jack Shantry and Charlie Morris bore the brunt of the bowling after Gareth Andrew's early season back injury and delivered the bulk of the overs.

Leach said: "It may have been a contributory factor but ultimately you pay the cards that you are dealt, don't you.

"Those cards were dealt, and probably it is about learning to cope with how they are dealt a bit better.

"Maybe I couldn't have done anything differently but I certainly want to explore that possibility and make sure I don't have that lull again.

"Ultimately if you make a mistake twice, you become a bit of a fool really."

*We will be featuring a full interview with Joe Leach on the Worcestershire CCC website during the next few days.